Comments on: Bullying Speech: Your voice has the power to make a difference

By: Bullying and Taking Action Against It « Enough Bullying Already!

Bullying and Taking Action Against It « Enough Bullying Already! — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:58:46 +0000

[...] which was the catalyst for me writing this article. His name is James, and you can find his article here. His article is very well written. He shares what he has done to overcome bullying and what action [...]

By: Margaret Jones, PhD

Margaret Jones, PhD — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:54:07 +0000

Throughout my childhood I was bullied at school and at home. There was no safe place for me. Ignoring the bullying didn’t work. There was no way I could hide the pain. What I needed was someone to teach me how to verbally defend myself. That training is now available from http://www.bullies2buddies.com I have written about the long term impact of bullying on my life in Not of My Making: Bullying, Scapegoating and Misconduct. It chronicles the bullying I experienced in school which then left me vulnerable to being bullied in church.
One of the the gifts of Columbine was that it sparked a lot of research into bullying. We now know that children who are short, introverted and introspecitve are more likely to be bullied than tall, athletic males. If you are female you are less likely to be bullied if you have money, wear nice clothes and are charismatic. In order to stop bullying we must teach the victims to stand up for themselves while those in authority enforce no bullying rules. Bullies can be taught to be good leaders and bystanders can be taught to stand up for the victim instead of rooting for the bully.

By: James

James — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 21:29:22 +0000

Thank you all for your support, this was a very hard topic for me to talk about because I was bullied for so long. After I presented, I felt good. The students cheered for me, and afterwards, someone stopped me and said I did a good job. I would like to thank Sarah for helping me read it over. I am considering making a website, to talk about different things such as bullying, poverty, etc.

In this domain I will be creating different articles to make people realize how bad these problems are.

Once again, thank you for all your support.

Regards,
James

By: Steve

Steve — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:53:25 +0000

James:
Speaking about your experiences takes tremendous courage. I believe its also the best ‘medicine’ for dealing with the effects of being bullied. When you are a victim of bullying you wonder how did you become chosen as a victim. Was it my looks, size or something I was wearing. You avoid going places, going to school or movies, start taking different routes home all to avoid being victimized. From my own childhood experiences it would seem that invisibility was only way to stop the bullying.

I look back through my past and you are right that there is no simple fix, you cannot just say “stop” and expect the bully to leave you alone. Keeping calm and responding with reserved measure may sometimes prevent conflict. Other times you can walk away, possibly run. What you have learned that I did not is that speaking out makes a difference. It says to other people that bullying exists and you do not tolerate it. You should feel proud in that you have the courage to step up and speak out publicly about what has happened to you. By telling your story other victims of bullying will come forward and speak out for themselves.

Steve

By: Patrick Burt

Patrick Burt — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:11:32 +0000

James. Ignoring is always the toughest part. Controlling your gut reaction is always a tough step and I’m glad to see that you’ve got that taken care of. You’re an innately strong and good person (and a great writer). You have a good life ahead of yourself and it’s inspiring to see that you’re trying to get your message out there.
Godspeed.

By: Mark Matchen

Mark Matchen — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 13:37:12 +0000

Nice post, Sarah, in this anti-bullying week. I’m a high school teacher, and bullying is front and center for us. Something we have to recognize is that “zero-tolerance” for bullying has very little meaning. It’s unenforceable. For example, someone bumps into a smaller person in a crowded hallway and her books fall. Bullying? Deserving of a suspension? Good luck with the parents.

Bullies are adept. They test boundaries and know how to stay just beneath the threshold of tolerance. For the bullied, it’s the death by a thousand cuts.

So what do we do? I think we have much more success with pro-active work than with discipline. The hard core bullies are hard to hit, but we can hit the passive observers and casual bullies. They respond very well to real life, touching stories, and especially to first person testimonials like the one you included in your post. And the message has to be repeated and repeated and repeated. It’s not a war we can win utterly, but we can alter the environment a lot.

By: Chris Woodill

Chris Woodill — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:14:17 +0000

James, good luck with everything. The best advice I can provide is find a few friends that actually care – life is not a popularity contest and the vast majority of people in this world are not worth much. Find the ones that are and stick to them and build your own safety net.

Don’t worry about what everyone thinks – worry about what the people who matter to YOU think.

By: Michelle

Michelle — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 01:12:40 +0000

I would just like to say that you have a lot of courage coming forward and sharing your story. In doing this you will help others to know that they are not alone. Standing up in front of a crowd can be scary but doing scary things in life will always show you what more you can do.

Good luck tomorrow and thank you for being the change we want to see.
- Michelle

By: Denis

Denis — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 00:02:34 +0000

Sarah, I’m really glad that you shared this story on you site. So many people are affected by bullying, yet few people speak of it and even fewer take action to prevent it.

Parents, if your child comes home feeling down or is acting distant, you need to delve into what is causing that behavior. It only takes one demeaning comment from a bully to ruin your child’s day. More often than not a bully persists throughout the day with his or her verbal threats and name calling. By the end of the day a child can feel completely demoralized and want nothing more that to get away from it all. That’s when they need your support; you need to keep your ears and eyes open. Even if they say that they are fine, you need to get them to open up.

For the parents out there that think that bullying is just something that a child has to learn to cope with, I say to you, bullshit! For so many years of my life I came home totally demoralized from all the bullying I had to deal with. I tried to talk about the situation with my mom and she just played it off as something kids have to deal with when growing up. I felt trapped. It was an overwhelming feeling having to get up and go to school, day in and day out, believing that there was nothing that I could do but to grin and bear it. No child deserves to experience that, and it takes a long time to come to terms with that kind of torment. Permitting a child to be a victim of bullying does not strengthen that child’s resolve or build his or her character any more that taking a bat to a car gives it character.

Everyone needs to make a stand for the victims of bullying and against the environments that permit it.

The young man in your article deserves a round of applause. Hear, hear!